Announcing The New Techdirt Insider Shop

from the rtb dept

A few years ago, in the pre-Kickstarter (but post-artists-crowdfunding) world, we decided that there was no reason why some of the basic experiments for funding that musicians were doing shouldn't apply to blogs as well. So we launched our own "tiered" "CwF+RtB" (Connect with Fans + Reasons to Buy) store entirely as an experiment. By the end of the year, we made over $50,000 with it, which exceeded any modest expectations we might have had. Since then, it's always been on the list of things to do to update the store in a big way, and a few months ago, we finally decided to focus in on it. While it took longer than we expected, we're proud to launch the new version:

It has many of the same offerings that the original had, but a bunch of new and expanded offerings as well. It's designed more as a store than a "tiered" setup, so shop around a bit. We'll have a few more posts highlighting some key features and merchandise, but for those of you already familiar with the Techdirt Crystal Ball -- which allows you to get early access to some stories and preview the headlines of others -- that's still around, but it's now been expanded, so you get to see some stories up to two hours early, rather than just one. And, if you sign up for a premium package, you can even get the brand new Crystal Ball Plus, which gives you pretty detailed access to all sorts of posts we're working on, including false-start stories that never make it onto the site, and some works that are very much in progress. If you're already a Techdirt Crystal Ball subscriber, your account has been upgraded to the new version, meaning you get to see more stories earlier, and you get some other features.

We also have some brand new features on the site for Insiders, including the new First Word/Last Word offering, which I'll have another post discussing in more detail a little later today. There's also the brand new Insider Chat which all of you should be able to see to your right. Certain Insider membership packages allow you to join in the chat. Without one of those... you can still view the chat, but you can't participate. Also, for those who sign up for longer term packages, we have a number of offerings, including special Insider Hangouts (using Google+'s Hangouts feature), which should be a lot of fun. Check out the store for a detailed explanation of all the new blog features that are available.

You want more gear? We've got more gear, including new t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, bottles and other assorted paraphernalia. We've got a brand new Seized t-shirt in honor of various domain seizures (more on that later!) and an updated DMCA takedown t-shirt. The original was our most popular seller, so don't miss out on the new, revamped version. We've also got a very special, limited edition Techdirt staff bundle -- of which only five are available to buy. These are special staff-only hoodies and an assortment of other goodies. If you don't want to splurge to that level (or if they all sell out before you get a chance) we've got some other hoodies to choose from.

Downloads? We've got downloads. You can "pay what you want" for the ebook version of my book Approaching Infinity (built off a collection of Techdirt posts) or our famed Sky is Rising report. Name your price and help support more such works in the future! Hell, if you don't want anything specific in return, you can also just donate some money.

There's plenty more as well, including getting lunch with me -- which we offered only as a one week special last time, but it was quite popular (and a lot of fun) -- as well as the indisputably Awesome Day with Techdirt (which a few folks did last time around, and it really was quite awesome). There are also various business services that tie back into how we normally make a living.

And, last and most certainly least, we still have options for those of you who hate Techdirt. Last time around, we offered to take a year off for merely $100-million, and surprisingly none of you took us up on it. We did have some requests for pro-rated offerings, so we'll now shut down for 24 hours for just $1 million (pocket change!). As for the big one? Well, we always hear the haters insist that price is equal to value, and no one appeared to value that $100-million offering enough... so the price is going up. You can shut us up for an entire year for the new, more luxurious price of $100,000,001. Hurry up. We may raise the prices again before you know it.

Either way, the store platform we've put together is a lot more robust, and we're hopeful that we can do a bunch of other things with it over the next few months and years, so shop away...

Please note that while we've been testing the new store & features extensively, when things go live, problems always pop up. If you spot any errors or bugs, please let us know and we'll get to them as quickly as possible...

Re:

$50000/year (+getting paid for your regular job) is a failure?

Ah, I see. You must be one of those people that look at those graphs of the music industry profits that consistently show record increases in profit, and goes like "See! Piracy is killing the music business!!!."

Re:

Complaint

I would like to lodge, AGAIN, a complaint that this Techdirt RTB store once again does not include my proposed "Dark Helmet Nude Calendar" idea. I can think of no better way to expand Techdirt's female reader demographic than a lovingly printed calendar of me in the buff celebrating the various seasons.

This could easily sell for $100/ea and work the fund to create new and future nude calendars....

Re: Re: Re: Re: For those who continue to not understand what a paywall is..

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: For those who continue to not understand what a paywall is..

Hmm, so you apparently don't understand what a windowed release is either. That's okay, post-lobotomy patient, I'm here to help.

A window release is where you release different formats of the same thing to everyone at once. For example, Avatar comes out in 3D in the theatres to the entire public. Then, 3 years later, it comes out in 3D on BluRay to the entire public. Window release.

This is a members only offering, where a temporary preview is available to insiders.

Look, to save us all some time, why don't you just make your next comment a list of terms you don't understand and I'll sort it out for you, yes?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: For those who continue to not understand what a paywall is..

Re: Re: Re: For those who continue to not understand what a paywall is..

You need to forcefully and with great excitement vote for Dark Helmet appearing nude in a calendar..

Please note that the rest of the community will flame you, with real flame throwers most likely, but DH would most likely stop his nude posing of 'the thinker' with glee and whilst jumping up and down yelling "see someone loves me" (and making everyone else giggle at his junk flopping...OMG the image.. get it out) probably pay for you.

Re: Bug/Typo

Works for me, below What's this? it's displaying:
Techdirt Insiders, who've purchased a package at the Techdirt Crystal Ball level or above, can specify a number of comments each month as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular post. Doing so pins and highlights the comment at the beginning or end of the comment thread.

Re:

Looks great! I wanted to buy a bunch of stuff. So, I used Chrome to visit the shop, selected the first item and then started to search for a buy or purchase button...

Five hours later, I've still not found it! So I guess you're not really want to sell stuff. :-)

At the bottom of each item page there's an "add to cart" button and then plenty of ways to get to the cart... We've had plenty of orders all day, so this doesn't appear to be a widespread issue. Do you not see the "add to cart" option?

I'm wondering if there's something specific to your setup that has hidden the button, but let us know the details (you can contact us via the form if you'd prefer to do it that way) and we'll see what we can do.

Re: Re:

Hmmm For some reason, I never noticed it first I am not seeing any ability to Add to the cart either. I see the Cart (with zero items) in top right corner and when pressing the script window opens showing nothing is in it, but there is no access to ADD to the thing on any window .

I was curious and thought ok maybe its an extension under firefox, but turning them all off it still does not become visible.

So I then tried chrome with no luck (on any mode) and then bit the bullet and tried IE and still no luck.

I can see looking at the source where it is supposedly supposed to be but it's just not there.

Could it by chance be a geo-location problem in Foxyshop? Which would make sense. I'm at home at moment and have no way to easily trick the system to think I'm from another location, but I'd look at that first.

Email me Mike (or your web dev dude can) and I will send my generated source for all elements and html/CSS code that the user-side has generated here.

Strange.. though at least it's given me pause so I don't pay that million dollars to give you a much needed 24hrs of rest ;)

Re: Re: Re:

The other thing it might be (and more likely) is that it is not linking up with the main User Account DB of Techdirt since there is no way to access a login or otherwise on the shop site, so I will assume it is suing the the encrypted session cookie from TD login and running a SQL on the TD DBMS and using that info as login to the shop/cart (one hopes).

That could be the culprit since just looked at other live sites using FoxyShop/FoxyCart and in USA and they all show "add to cart" button beside the prices etc.

Re: Re:

Well, I use Google Chrome, latest version. And I'm an insider as you can see by my icon.
What I can see is this screenshot on my website which doesn't seem to contain any option to actually purchase anything.

Re: Re: Re:

Well, I use Google Chrome, latest version. And I'm an insider as you can see by my icon.
What I can see is this screenshot on my website which doesn't seem to contain any option to actually purchase anything.

Maybe it's because I'm not in the USA?

Yup, turns out we made a mistake last night and turned off the button (oops). It's back now.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

You won't sell much when the "Buy" button is disabled.

Also, I've noticed another problem. I wanted to order a t-shirt for a friend of mine which costs $29.00 but shipping costs to the Netherlands adds another $47.95 to the price. Wow! With such expensive shipping costs, you won't sell much merchandise outside the USA.
Cancelling that order again... Way too expensive! :-)

Please keep in mind that Techdirt has plenty of international visitors. Maybe you should find a way to cut those costs?